Parents forget three-year-old girl at motorway rest stop

A toddler has been left at a roadside rest stop, while her family drove on more than 150 kilometres towards their destination without realising their child was missing.

It took a radio alert for the parents to realise their three-year-old daughter had been left behind, but not before she had spent more than 45 minutes alone at the rest stop.

According to The Guardian, the little girl was found by other holidaymakers in the rest area off the A7 in southern France. She reportedly told them she had a brother and sister, and that she was “going to the seaside”. The family was on its way to the French Riviera, and police say the girl saw her family’s car drive away.

The parents, both French, reportedly told police they only realised the toddler wasn’t in the car when they heard an alert about a lost child on the radio, some 45 minutes after strangers found her at the rest stop. They called police immediately and turned the car around to go back for their little girl.

“The family had passed Aix-en-Provence [150km away] and were going towards Saint-Raphaël and none of them had noticed she wasn’t there,” an officer said.

The parents have been questioned by police, with The Guardian reporting an officer said that, “We are going to listen to what they have to say and talk to the prosecutor at Valence to see if this should be taken further”.